


Angel of the painted glass

by singtome



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Divergence - Alternative Timeline, Fluff, Hitting it hard with that soulmate trope, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Only in regards to the alt ending, Pillow Talk, Sleepy Cuddles, This is just 4k of cuddles, Vague Episode Ignis Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 12:33:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13123803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singtome/pseuds/singtome
Summary: "Shit, Iggy. Insomnia’s not going to fall again just ‘cause you decide to take the morning off."After everything is over, Ignis and Gladio spend a morning in bed.





	Angel of the painted glass

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from [Holy Ghost](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVk7klcrLks) by BORNS.
> 
> Directly follows the Alternative Verse ending from Episode Ignis.
> 
> Pseudo edited.
> 
> One thing to note: looking back on this now I would just like to mention that this whole entire fic was very experimental for me, in the sense of how I use language and string sentences together. It's a rather different style than what I normally go for, and I feel like if you're here and you've read any of my other fics you would be able to notice a difference. Though, Ignis does call for more wordiness and chaotic purple prose without mercy, anyway. 
> 
> Enjoy :)

 

 *

 

Noctis, Ignis muses, resembled Regis so much up there on that throne that upon entering the hall, the adviser nearly had to do a double take. The morning light beaming through the tall glass windows shone in ribbons across the throne room and Noctis, lounged back, eyes shielded from the light and arms rested purposely atop the royal red, appeared absolutely regal, that for a moment Ignis could do nothing but stare, awed but with the low warmth of pride simmering in his chest. 

The morning spent chatting with Noctis had been easy – Noctis’s brow twitching once in amusement at Ignis’s initial stare, as if stating, _No, you’re not seeing ghosts_ , and they’d laughed about it afterward – Ignis inquired about his majesty’s night’s sleep, to which Noctis suppressed an eye roll and later confessed that he imagined he could lounge up here for the rest of his life, that _Hey, Kinging really isn’t so bad_. Ignis responded that he would grow bored after two hours of all that reality and retire to his phone, and they laughed, and it was as if no time had passed at all.

Now, Ignis completes it all on the short journey back to his apartment with a light step and a lighter spirit. Nodding to workers as they pass, who catch his face and scars and straight edged posture beneath that uniform and see a name and legend attached to the man walking the halls of the citadel like the galleries bend to his will and the milky sunlight swirls and dances with each step. Noctis had given him the day off, just about, _It’s a beautiful day,_ He’d said, _Please don’t spend it in a dark office doing inventory._

 _But, Noct,_ Ignis’ lips had curled at the corners, green eyes tap dancing with mirth, voice high and shocked _, Inventory was yesterday; today is accounting._

Noctis shook his head, fighting a laugh, _You really haven’t changed a bit._

When his front door locks with a click and Ignis turns to the vast, far too extravagant room, more extravagant than Ignis would have preferred but Noctis _insisted_ and one does not argue with the King, especially if he has twenty years’ worth of metaphorical dirt on you, spends a moment to take everything in. The doors to the balcony remain open from the night before, white curtains tussle in the soft breeze, moving like waves as Ignis drops his jacket and makes his way toward the large four-poster bed, or, more accurately, the lump sprawled in the satin sheets.

Gladio as a whole is a stark contrast to the room; where it is soft, light and airy he is dark and rugged, aged tattoo just recently touched up stands out against bronze skin littered with scars through years of battle. His hair, from where it’s escaped from the elastic during slumber, spreads across the pillows like silk and Ignis sighs, watching Gladio’s back gently rise and fall as he sleeps, and leans down, helpless, to brush a stray lock of hair from his cheek. This rouses him some, brows furrowing before his eyes begin to flutter open, turning over heavily, a deep groan that sounds somewhat like Ignis’ name tumbling from his full lips.

Ignis’ heart swells and he turns away to the vanity, laughing fondly, soft. “I’ve been gone all morning and you are _still_ in bed,” he scolds without heat, looking to Gladio with a _what are we going to do with you_ shake of his head, and begins to unbutton his vest. He murmurs, “One would think you’d gotten lazy in your old age.”

Gladio rolls over completely now – in the mirror Ignis spots his sleepy pout on account of the snide – and stretches his arms out above his head, torso on full display, and it is then that Ignis suddenly recalls his state of undress beneath the sheets. “It’s our day off,” he says, sighing into the stretch, and Ignis turns back around.

“Ah.” Ignis hums, meticulously removing his gloves, “And you’ve become a prophet now, have you?”

“You’re home early which means you don’t got shit to do.” Gladio waves a lazy arm in Ignis’ general direction, beckoning him over. He says, “Come back to bed.”

Ignis untucks his shirt from his belt and looks over his shoulder to Gladio, who has now risen to hover on one elbow, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Ignis frowns. He had been thinking of getting some work done (don’t tell Noct) small, measly tasks that wouldn’t take long, but are tedious nonetheless, and today is the perfect opportunity.

He’s instantly transported back to another time, another life, a Gladio much like he is now, except younger, skin painted only with ink and sans scars, saying, _Noct’s a big boy, he can make his own damn breakfast. Baby, come back to bed,_ his arms outstretched but eyes closed, as if he could find Ignis in the dark by sense alone.  

And could.

He can.

He always does.

Ignis clicks his tongue and meets Gladio’s beckoning gaze with his own, full of wavering fight, he still replies, “Regretfully, I have much to do.”

Gladio’s response is to flop back down onto his back with all the grace of a dead coeurl. “Ugh,” he articulates, “Shit, Iggy, you have all day to do anything you need to. Insomnia’s not going to fall again just ‘cause you decide to take the morning off. Plus, you’ve already started takin’ off your clothes and that ain’t fair. Now get over here.”

Well, he does have a point there.

The sudden breeze through the open window causes Ignis to shiver, but somehow he doesn’t feel it is from the cold. Nevertheless, Gladio does look quite warm, as he always does, his honey red eyes have always been enough to light a fire in Ignis’ chest.

 _Home_ , Gladio had said, so casually in his half-woken state, as if he has no idea the weight that word holds for Ignis, how it sends electricity through his veins. For the past ten years Ignis had not known a home; the concept so far off in a different plane of existence of its own that he’d forgotten what it actually meant to have one. Where, on the nights Ignis spent curled up in a hotel room while Gladio and Prompto were elsewhere, that cold, deep loneliness he fought tooth and nail to vanquish in the deepest crevices of his heart were most prominent, where ten years had been spreading on for eons with no end in sight, and Ignis wanted so badly a home to back go to he thought he’d combust from it. 

On one occasion he’d shouted and lost his temper and behaved like an utter child, completely embarrassing himself, shouting about how tired he was and how deeply he just wanted all this to be over to a quiet and patient Gladio, _so so patient_ , who took it all and never interrupted. And after, when Ignis had had his moment of grief and rage and was taking steady breaths while the mortification settled in, Gladio had taken his face in his hands and pressed his forehead to Ignis’.

 _Home_ , Gladio had whispered, _You’re my home, Iggy_.

“ _Iggy_.” He says now, just his name, but _that voice_ , Gods, he sighs when he does it, throat thick and tongue liquid in the way it always is in the early morning, and when he looks over at him, all tanned skin and long limbs, a lock of chestnut curled inward toward his chin and falling into his eyes, he is far too tempting. Ignis is but a man, after all.

Ignis pretends to inspect a thread in his trousers, lips pursed in thought. “I suppose,” he drawls, kicking his boots off. Gladio turns to look at him, “I may, possibly,” Ignis moves to his belt and Gladio’s shoulders perk in interest, “Be able to spare a few minutes.”

Full lips stretch into a grin. Ignis strips to his underwear, hyperaware of Gladio’s eyes upon him the entire time, and when he finally climbs into the warm sheets, kissed by the sun, and curls his limbs around the larger frame beside him, Gladio sighs with his entire body.

It’s almost ridiculous, really, how familiar he feels. It’s arrogant, though Ignis is slightly vain, but he doesn’t imagine anyone else on Eos has what they have. This indistinguishable, irrevocable bond they share, the one they’ve had since they were young, much before they began _this,_ where there was simply glances across board rooms that held mind-numbingly boring meetings they were both forced to attend, where one glance could explain exactly what the other was thinking. Where they had conversations that lasted an hour at a stretch without either uttering a single word, all the way across a vast room.

Where a single brush in passing as they crossed paths would send shivers through the other’s body, where joint training sessions turned into one-on-one training sessions which turned into Ignis pressed into a column and Gladio’s hands in his hair and Gladio’s mouth against his and a sob building in Ignis’ chest because it felt like something he’d been waiting for for centuries. Judging from the way Gladio had sighed, a broken tenor of Ignis’ name into his neck, his collarbone, his lips; he’d felt the same.

Gladio tucks his arms around Ignis’ trim waist and brings him closer, one of Ignis’ knees between Gladio’s thighs and his elbow thrown comfortably over his shoulder to rest in the soft tresses of hair at the back of Gladio’s neck and he thinks, insanely, that he’d like to braid it. He blindly digs around for the elastic and finds it, flicking it over onto his wrist for later. With a murmur of, “That’s better,” Gladio tilts his chin and connects their lips, and Ignis decides that the sacrifice of a productive morning may be worth it in the end.

“Missed you,” his partner utters between kisses, his palms smoothing up and down the expanse of Ignis’ back, fingertips tickling his spine and circling one, two, three times in the dip in his lower back, like always.

Ignis loops a lock of hair around his fingers, “I was merely gone for three hours,” he says, incredulously.

Gladio hums, shaking his head, “Too long.”

Ignis laughs softly, “Gladiolus, we have been separated for months at a time in the past, if you might remember.”

“Too. Long.” Gladio punctuates these words with a jab to Ignis’ abdominal muscles, leaving him squirming and laughing. “What were you even doing?” He asks.

Ignis finds two locks of hair fallen from behind Gladio’s ear and corrects them. Once there, he sets to the task of twisting them around each other. He replies, “Talking with Noct.”

“Hmn. Fine.” He says, “How is he?” Gladio’s lips twitch against the bridge of his nose, and Ignis knows he’s holding back from asking too much about their King’s well-being. Ignis smirks.

“He is fine. Better than we could have ever hoped for, really … I’m sure he’d been up with Prompto into the early hours of the morning, playing something or other. It’s like nothing has changed,” Ignis leans back to meet Gladio’s eyes, only to find they’ve shut once again.

“He asked me about you.”

Ignis is gifted with one eye open. Gladio’s eyebrow twitches with curiosity, “Oh yeah? What’d he want, to know my high score? How many Midgardsormrs I’d fucked up while he was napping in the crystal?”

“Not quite,” Ignis walks his fingers up Gladio’s chest, “He was actually curious to know if you’d been, to quote, ‘treating me right’ these past years.”

Both eyes are now open and Gladio is looking at Ignis with an unreadable expression, though Ignis could try and discern surprise, awe, and a hint of concern and fear, which makes his heart swell.  

“Oh?” Gladio clears his throat, his eyes flitting from Ignis’ to his lips, to his shoulders and chest and back again, “And, uh. What’d’ya tell him?”

Slowly, Ignis reaches up to smudge his fingers along the three day stubble on Gladio’s jaw, moving upward to brush over a sharp cheekbone, feel Gladio’s feather soft lashes tickle his thumb, and over to the tip of his nose. Here, Ignis’ eyes fall shut and he allows himself to take a moment to really _feel_ Gladio, to map him out in his mind, to paint that perfect picture, to feel his nostrils flare as he awaits an answer, his eyebrow twitching when Ignis passes over the ticklish soft skin below his eyes.

Finally he reaches his lips, lets the warmth of his breath ghost over his fingers, and Ignis sighs, opens his eyes, and says, honestly, “I told him you were perfect.”

Gladio’s breath catches in his throat at the admission, and Ignis’ eyes flutter open to see Gladio staring, looking at him, but _seeing_ him, and for a brief moment Ignis feels more naked than he has any right to be. But then Gladio is groaning, “ _Six_ , I love you.” And Ignis is surging forward and kissing all the remaining breath from his lungs.

He pushes Ignis the rest of the way onto his back and settles in between his legs, comfortable and familiar, and they both sigh into the kiss, lips working faster now. When this goes on for some moments and they break for air, Gladio shifts his attention to Ignis’ jaw, planting unyielding, open mouthed kisses there, knowing the exact points that’ll make Ignis’ breath catch in his chest. Ignis’ head falls back against the pillow and he laughs, hysterical sounding even to his ears.

“As if you ever doubted ...”

Gladio nips lightly at the shell of his ear, “Nah, never. I know I’m the best you’ve ever had.” He punctuates this with a heart stopping smirk and a roll of his hips, and Ignis sucks in a quick breath through his teeth.

“I’d tell you not to get too cocky, but I feel as though we’re about a decade too late for that.”

Ignis feels the deep rumble of Gladio’s laugh reverberate through his chest, “You love it.”

He lifts his knees to slip around Gladio’s hips, lips pressed against the column of his throat and teeth scraping once, gently, enough to cause Gladio to hiss and roll them over. Hands gripping his thighs, two fingers slip under the hem of Ignis’ shorts and he sighs, content, Gladio’s thumb tracing smooth, circular patterns into his skin.

“Shit,” he curses, “When was the last time we stayed in bed all day?”

Ignis’ lips press against Gladio’s shoulder and his hands trace the outer corners of his tattoo, twirling and dancing across the intricate details, the tips of the feathers and the long curve of the beak, thinking. When he’d first gotten it done Gladio had spent a while trying to convince Ignis to get one too, just a small one, on his chest or back, and Ignis had waived him off replying he simply didn’t have time where secretly, and Gladio will never know this, he’d considered it, the idea thrilling him some. It would be a mark on his skin that only he and Gladio knew was there, something secret and entirely theirs.

To answer Gladio’s question, those times were also the last time they had _stayed in bed all day long_ , wrapped up in their own little world where their duties and reality could not touch, where they would spend hours making each other gasp and laugh and moan. At times Ignis would lie on his side and gaze at a sleeping Gladio inches away from him and trace over the lines of his face, the curves of his nose and lips and down to the dip of his spine, feeling the small bumps, tapping at moles and birthmarks only he knew existed.

Now, Ignis sighs, “Far too long ago,” feeling it in every inch of him and Gladio nods, agreeing.  

“Good,” he says, a low rumble in his throat and he pulls at the backs of Ignis’ thighs to push him up for easy access to his neck, to that little spot behind his ear that makes him absolutely shiver and it’s ridiculous, positively _outrageous_ , that after all these years, after everything they’ve been through, Gladio is still able to pull these little responses from him as if he is twenty-years-old again and desperately in love.

“Just means we got a lot of time to catch up on,” Gladio once again rolls his hips up and Ignis feels him against his thigh. All at once he remembers that this was only supposed to be a few minutes, and judging from the way they’re going it is defiantly going to be far longer. On top of that, he feels the ever present anxiety usually in the forefront of Ignis’ mind when the tasks he set to aren’t getting done push further and further away until all he remembers of the present moment are Gladio’s hands on him and his lips peppering sweet, soft kisses down the slope of his shoulder.

Ignis allows himself to become liquid as Gladio expertly rolls them back again and Ignis feels the warm, sun-kissed sheets against his back, content with the heavy frame of Gladio above him and he imagines, maybe, crazily, if this were a different life and they were different people they could lay in bed all day long. Ignis hums once, in both agreement and appreciation, threads his fingers into Gladio’s hair, winds the long length of it around his wrist once and tugs, lightly, smiling at Gladio’s answering growl.

Ignis toes at his calf, easily, enjoying the feeling of the hairs up the length of his legs, leisurely, and murmurs, “Perhaps we do.”

Gladio’s lashes tickle his skin as his eyes flutter shut and, resting his head in the nook between Ignis’ neck and shoulder, his breath ghosting hot over his skin, butterfly kisses, and he says, sighs more like, “You’re so fucking beautiful. Let’s get married.”

Ignis scoffs to himself and winds one arm comfortably around Gladio’s neck, the other occupied with massaging deep, slow circles into his scalp that makes him groan appreciatively. It isn’t the first time he’s mentioned this, not by long. The concept has come up many times in the past, some of them light hearted, like the very first time Gladio had said it, after their first night together, where Gladio had wandered out of the bedroom, shirtless with sweatpants hanging low on his hips, the hair he’d been growing out obscuring one of his eyes, to be greeted with Ignis – admittedly, nervous cooking – and a kitchen full of breakfast ranging from green and healthy to brown and greasy. Gladio, silent for a long stretch of a moment as they stared at each other from across the room, said simply, _Marry me_.

There were the times of light-hearted fun, when they had been out and Gladio had leaned over the booth full of all their friends to whisper into Ignis’ ear, tipsy but quietly so that only he could hear, asking him to marry him. Ignis had grinned, then, and pushed Gladio away good naturedly and pressed a finger to his lips, but his eyes, oh, his eyes, they whispered a silent promise that only Gladio would understand, that made his entire face light up with possibility.

Ignis had never actively told him yes, before, but that was the very first time he had said _Later_.

The second time was on a park bench overlooking a canal at one-o-clock in the morning, Noctis and Prompto somewhere in a room already asleep, as he and Gladio watched the lights of Altissia dance and sway in the water as the city slowly began to slumber. They’d stopped at a high rise point where you could see the entire city stretching out around them for miles. Ignis recalls cool wind kissing his skin and tousling his hair, looking out over the horizon and for once in his life feeling hopeful and content with what is to come tomorrow. He had turned to Gladio, some stupid joke on his tongue and mirth and magic in his eyes and had seen the look Gladio was giving him, the one that says he’d been watching the entire city but only in the expressions on Ignis’ face.

He had learned in close, this raw honesty in his eyes and pure sincerity, as if he’s ready to risk everything at this very second and is terrified yet thrilled at the same time, and he said, “Let’s get married. I wanna be with you, for as long as we can.”

Ignis, fire in his chest and fingertips tingling with electricity, had met him half way, pressing their foreheads together, he nodded, replied, “When all this is over.”

This very moment, ten years later, Gladio’s thumbs massage the juts of Ignis’ hipbones and his fingers dip under the waistband, shocking a laugh out of him. Mischievously, eyes glimmering with merriment, Ignis makes to roll away.

“Of course, I’ll start planning right now, shall I?”

Gladio’s answering growl and his arms reaching out to tug Ignis right back to him, spine to chest is the best response he could have asked for, and Ignis laughs when Gladio flicks him in the hip. “Smart ass,” he grumbles as his arms loop to rest against Ignis’ chest, palm flat over his navel. Lips stretched into a wide grin Ignis watches the sheer curtains pulse in the breeze, the colour of them a beautiful sharp contrast to the blue of the sky, content and secure in Gladio’s arms until he, eventually, feels the steady rise and fall of Gladio’s chest, his breathing tickling the fine hairs at the back of his neck, he begins to feel himself drift.

He thought Gladio had fallen back asleep until his voice sounds in the quiet space between them.

“We could, now.” Ignis’ eyes re-open. Gladio draws patterns on his skin as he speaks, “Now that everything’s over. Noct’s royal highness is on the throne and everything’s – good. Shit. It’s _good_ , Iggy.”

The genuine astonishment in his voice is one Ignis understands all too well. The years of waiting, those bad nights among the good among the _very bad_ nights, the ones that brought on things like Ignis’ little temper tantrum and others, the nights where, one time, Ignis found Prompto curled in a corner of the room, clutching at his wrist and sniffling, and he’d spent the entire night sleeping between Ignis and Gladio and their unbridled desire to protect, at all costs, where the days and nights came and went and the years flew by like a feather in the wind and they felt like nothing would end, ever, that this was it.

That seed of doubt that Noctis had been swallowed by the crystal forever and will never return, those anxieties placed upon Ignis’ shoulders, turning his heart to ice some nights, where he’d pushed Gladio away and told him it was never going to happen, that _they_ were never going to happen. The shock and hurt in Gladio’s eyes when he’d said that had been far more painful to witness than the ring of Lucii had ever been to wear.

Gladio chuckles to himself, “Hey, I wonder if Noct could legally do it. Do you think?”

Ignis feels a bubble of laughter in his chest at the notion. He rubs softly at his partner’s wrist, thoughtful. “Perhaps. We’d have to ask. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we gave enough notice.”

Gladio’s hand stops its travels lower and Ignis tries to keep the hum of disappointment to himself. With one pull Ignis is on his back again with Gladio’s lovely face looming above him. “Really?” He speaks with a quietly stunned tone and tentatively, Ignis reaches up to trace a finger along his scars; first the one across his forehead, and then the one down to the corner of his mouth.

“Ask me again,” Ignis whispers, breath stuttering when Gladio kisses him, “Ask me again.”

 _Marry me_ , Gladio breathes into his lips, the words curling around his tongue and ticking the roof of his mouth. _Marry me_ , he says to his shoulder, to the soft skin at his elbow, to dip beneath his hip. _Marry me_ , he bites into the back of his knee, his inner thigh, below his navel, and groans into Ignis’ throat where his head falls back against the pillow, jaw slack and open.

 And _Marry me_ , he sighs to Ignis’ chest, directly above his heart, and whispers to his soul.

“Yes,” Ignis gasps as his heart settles to a regular pace again, “Yes, Gladiolus.”

Gladio’s face has completely disappeared beneath his hair, but Ignis can feel his smile against his skin. “I think I’ve been waitin’ to hear you say that since we met.”

Ignis scoffs, dizzy and satisfied, tongue loose. “We met when I was twelve,” he remarks, “’Tis a tad creepy.”

Gladio chuckles, drunk, a low, deep rumble, a sound that Ignis loves like nothing else in the world, “Nah, before that.”

And.

Ignis would be confused if he didn’t understand exactly what he meant. No one else has ever felt this familiar; no one else’s skin has ever felt this real, no one’s laugh like it could light up a thousand fires in his heart, no one else’s eyes this open, this magical, that he feels it deep down, curling around his spirit like a ribbon and making a home for itself there. Some say the eyes are the window to the soul and, in times like this, Ignis believes that to be true.

Gladio peeks up at him now, one thumb idly caressing one of the few scars that remain from the years on Ignis’ face. Gladio had told him once, eons ago, that Ignis should protect his face because _It’s too pretty to get all marked up._ And then, after Altissia, when Ignis barely survives by the skin of his teeth and the hair on his head, Gladio had looked at him in the early morning light; messy brown locks in his face, lips chapped, skin singed and eyes tired, red and purple but the green of his irises catching the sun and he’d said, _Shit, I’m an idiot. You’re still hot as fuck_. And they had laughed, exhausted and hysterical and too fresh with the knowledge that they were so close to losing the other forever.

“Yes,” Ignis agrees, eyes drooping shut, “I suppose you’re right.”

They have time.

Now, where once they felt like they had none of it and then all too much of it, it is finally that perfect combination where Ignis feels his tasks will get done, even if he pushes them to the side for now. Insomnia will not fall again, now that Noctis is finally on the throne and the power of the crystal has been restored. So this very moment, Ignis is perfectly content with rolling over and resting his face against Gladio’s hair, breathing in his scent, one arm slung over his waist, and drifting off to calm oblivion.

For now: they rest.

 

 *


End file.
